


Like a Warm Summer Rain

by auselysium



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M, angst turned fluff, proposal fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 11:38:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7506834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auselysium/pseuds/auselysium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A talk, turned spat turns into something Aaron least expects (and he says yes!)</p><p>Based off @stulot's post: I want him to say something like “Aaron, I just don’t want to move in with you, I want to marry you so don’t think I’m having second thoughts about us just because I needed time to think about it”</p><p>Also addresses the "Robert needs to admit he's gay" thing and the "they need to stop having fights where Aaron tells Robert to go away and he does" thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Warm Summer Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stulot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stulot/gifts).



> I started this before the episode with Aaron "helping" Lawrence. So let's pretend it was that it was the intense, emotional, heart-warming conversation we all thought it would be, ok??

The drama with Ryan and the police had blown over faster than a thunderstorm on a hot day. Proving Robert teflon-tough and immune, once more. It shouldn’t have surprised anyone, least of all Aaron.

His own involvement with Lawrence, however, was proving harder to brush off. To see a grown man, the owner of Home Farm and a successful business, a pillar of the Emmerdale community, come so completely undone had been shocking. Heartbreaking wasn’t the right word because there wasn’t really any love lost between the two of them, but Aaron couldn’t fathom how Lawrence could have lived his whole life never coming to terms with a self-truth that Aaron - with his own fair share of drama, granted - had accepted before his 19th birthday.

“He’s always been a miserable old git. Now everyone at least can understand why.”

Robert hands Aaron a beer, the glass of the bottle cold and wet under his fingertips, and drops to the couch next to him. “I can’t imagine hating myself like that, denying who you really wanted for years. I barely survived a few months of doing that to myself, but doing it for a whole life? It’s terrible.”

“Some people can just handle that kind of denial, I guess. Go their whole lives pretending. Whole generations of men did that, didn’t they?” Robert muses. “Got married, had kids, never once owning up. Obviously Lawrence thought he could be one of those blokes but he thought wrong, didn’t he?”

Robert sits back, the bottle resting on his lips, which are curled into a slight smik. Aaron’s report of Robert’s ex-father-in-law - unshaven, shotgun wielding, borderline neurotic - had provided him with some sort of grim satisfaction. Aaron had found it grossly untasteful. Add to it the fact it has been several days with no mention of Aaron’s proposal to move in together, and he is most certainly feeling a bit prickly.

He turns towards Robert. Their knees almost touch.

“Is that what you’d’ve done then, if you hadn’t met me?”

Robert’s brow furrows; his beer drops to his lap.

“Would you have just stayed married to Chrissie, kept on denying who you are?” The realization hits him. “You’ve never actually said it out loud, have you?”

“Said what?”

“That you’re gay.”

Robert’s eyes roll and he sits back against the cushions, his whole demeanor shifting as if to say, _Not this again_.

“You still won’t admit it, will you?” Aaron asks with a disbelieving sneer. “Even after everything that’s gone on between us?”

“But why do I have to?” Robert sits forward. “Everyone knows we’re a couple. I call you my boyfriend. Why say those two words when I can say I love you? Don’t make this into a big deal.”

“I’m making this into a big deal?” He almost can’t believe it. “How is it not a big deal that the guy I’m with won’t admit that he’s into guys?”

“Well,” Robert says flatly. “Obviously I’m into guys if I’m with you.”

Aaron is in no mood for Robert’s snarky retorts. “Piss off, Robert.”

He gets up off the couch and dumps his still half full bottle of beer in the sink. Robert follows close behind.

“Oh, no you don’t,” he says, his tone now as irate as Aaron’s.

It takes a moment for it to register that this is their first fight as a couple. But it’s different than other fights. They’re not going off at each other about Chrissie or one of Robert’s meddling plans. This is the first time they are fighting about each other. _For_ each other.

“You don’t get to walk off in some great snit and tell me to ‘get out’ or ‘do one’. We’re past all that hot and cold bull shit, alright? We’re together. We’re solid. I mean, you asked if you wanted to move in together a few days ago for god’s sake!”

“Yeah, great, perfect,” Aaron says with a turn back towards him. “Go ahead and bring up the other topic you seem completely hell bent on ignoring. You obviously don’t want to move in together, so why don’t you just say it? Or are you going to chicken out and not admit that either?”

“No, you’re right I don’t want to move in with you.”

And just as the painful reality of just how much he’s must have misjudged his relationship with Robert, he feels the other man’s hand slip against his palm, his fingers curl between his.

“What I mean is, I don’t want to _just_ move in with you.”

Aaron looks up.

“I want a life with you, Aaron. My whole life.”

The drastic change in trajectory leaves Aaron flummoxed. “Wait? What?”

  
“What I’m mean is that yeah, alright. Maybe I am... gay or bi.” The words sound clumsy on his lips, but they ring true. He exhales heavily after they are out, a weight lifted. “Or maybe, I’m just completely, inexplicably in love with you. But whatever I am, I’m better when I’m with you. And I don’t want that to stop. I don’t want us to move in together just so we can shag in the shower uninterrupted, though that will certainly be an added perk,” Aaron blushes as Robert’s grin turns lascivious. “But I want to get a place with you because it’s the start of our lives together. Because it’s a sign that we’re committed to each other. For life. So I guess what I’m saying is, what do you think?”

“What, you’re demanding matching bands and a registry at Harrod’s before we get a flat together?” He snickers, but Robert remains serious.

“Well, maybe not Harrod’s but…would that be so bad?”

Aaron is stunned silent. Robert tilts his head, his eyes tender.

“You say you want to rely on me,” He says softly. “What would be better than to rely on your husband?”

“You’re serious?” Aaron’s heart is racing, his cheeks flushed.

Robert takes a moment as if to really verify the contents of his heart. Then with a solid nod of his head and charming smile he says, “Yeah.”

Overwhelmed, unprepared, amazed, elated. It’s all there in a wave of feeling. Never in a million years would he have thought this conversation would have ended in a proposal yet here they were, surprising the world once more.

“Well, do it properly then,” He says, gesturing towards the floor with his chin.

Robert bends down to one knee without a moment’s hesitation. They share a nervous laugh before Robert takes both of Aaron’s hands in his and brushes his thumbs over the top of his knuckles as if lamenting the ring he doesn’t yet have to put there.

“Aaron Dingle, will you marry me?”

“Yeah,” Aaron breathes, the tears on his cheeks warm like a summer rain. “Yeah, I will.”


End file.
